Rocker Ted Nugent rips Pure Michigan ad campaign

Apr. 25, 2013

Michigan native Ted Nugent took aim at the popular Pure Michigan tourism advertising campaign, saying in a radio interview today that it ignores hunting and fishing and suggesting the person in charge is a 'Hash Bash hippie.' / 2012 photo by Bob Wellinski/LaPorte (Ind.) Herald

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Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

LANSING — Michigan-born rocker Ted Nugent struck a nerve today when he savaged the popular Pure Michigan tourism campaign and criticized Holland’s Tulip Time Festival in a radio interview.

Nugent said during a telephone interview on the Lansing-based syndicated program “Michigan’s Big Show starring Michael Patrick Shiels” that liberalism and political correctness prevent Pure Michigan officials from highlighting in its ads what he said are the state’s biggest draws — hunting and fishing.

“How dare the Pure Michigan campaign not mention any of that because some Hash Bash hippie in charge of Michigan’s promotional campaigns is afraid to put a dead salmon, or a dead grouse, or a dead deer on the tourist brochure; but will put paragliding and tulip festivals on that brochure when no one is going to come to Michigan to go hang gliding or to go to the tulip festival?” Nugent asked.

The comments provoked an anti-Nugent eruption on social media by residents who described the 1970s rocker known as the Motor City Madman as an irrelevant has-been who shouldn’t criticize now that he has moved to Texas.

Nobody at the Michigan Economic Development Corp., which oversees the award-winning Pure Michigan campaign, would admit today to being a “Hash Bash hippie.”

Nugent’s other claims about the campaign are equally false, spokeswoman Michelle Begnoche said.

“We certainly have a hunting and fishing effort,” she said.

The agency launched a digital ad campaign focused on hunting and fishing last fall and has a TV ad focused on fishing that is part of its national campaign, Begnoche said. Pure Michigan has hunting and fishing tabs on its Facebook page — with videos and other links — and it partners with www.outdoorhub.com to provide more information about hunting and fishing opportunities in Michigan, she said.

Gwen Auwerda, executive director of the Tulip Time Festival, which will be held May 4-11 in Holland, said the festival attracts 500,000 visitors, including people from 46 states and 40 countries.

“I think he’s just not aware of what happens here,” Auwerda said. “I would be more than happy to have him come and see what it’s all about.”

Nugent, whose hits include “Cat Scratch Fever” and “Stranglehold,” is a hunting enthusiast who has become increasingly politically active with conservative views. In 2012, he received a visit from the Secret Service after comparing President Barack Obama to coyotes that needed to be shot.